AMPOL CEO CHARGES UP FOR THE FUTURE

08/07/21; Financial Review Just a year into the job, Matt Halliday is dealing with an unprecedented fall in demand, rebranding from Caltex to Ampol, negotiating to keep an oil refinery open and launched an ambitious green plan. Matt Halliday says Ampol will play a role in making people “more confident” to transition to electric cars.  When you pull up in your car to a petrol station in the year 2030, you can expect things to look a bit different. The petrol pumps will still be there but you can expect to find refuelling stations for hydrogen cars and charging points for electric cars too – transforming forecourts into energy distribution stations. Ampol chief executive Matthew Halliday is also expanding the company’s supermarket footprint, a trend that will make the humble petrol station more like a one-stop destination for household needs. Ampol has already launched 10 larger grocery stores in partnership…

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Fines on the cards as Australia tightens vaping product standards

12/07/21; Sydney Morning Herald Businesses will face fines of up to $11 million from later this year if they supply nicotine vaping products that fall foul of a strict new set of safety guidelines from the medicines regulator. From October, minimum safety and quality standards will come into effect for vaping goods that are supplied into Australia and are not registered in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. There are currently no nicotine vaping products in the register. Major reforms to vaping products will come into effect in October.  The move comes as part of an overhaul of vaping regulations which will mean Australians must have a prescription before buying e-cigarettes and vaping products online from overseas. The new quality rules specify that the products must not contain any active ingredients other than nicotine. They also detail set labelling and packaging rules, including warnings to keep the goods out of…

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WOOLWORTHS LAUNCHES ‘DIRECT-TO-BOOT’ PICK UPS IN SYDNEY

13/07/21; The Australian Business Review Woolworths has lodged plans for a new online fulfilment centre in the Sutherland Shire. Supermarket giant Woolworths is opening a new e-commerce-only “dark” supermarket in Sydney’s southern suburbs where customers can drop in and pick up groceries. The format will likely be rolled out across other suburbs as retailers switch focus to customers staying more in the suburbs even when office workers return to their desks. Woolworths has lodged plans for a the new online customer fulfilment centre in Caringbah with a major developer to build the facility at a former Toyota site. The project is the next step in Woolworths’ e-commerce network development, which includes existing facilities in Mascot, Brookvale and Lidcombe, and an automated site for Auburn. The development application for the 7200sq m Caringbah centre will see it sit in Aliro Group’s 2229 estate on Endeavour Road. If approved, the centre would…

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HELLOFRESH GOBBLES UP READY-MEALS MAKER YOUFOODZ

13/07/21; Australian Financial Review Meal kits supplier HelloFresh is set to widen the gap with arch rival Marley Spoon by moving into the ready-made meals sector, offering to buy recently-listed Brisbane based company Youfoodz for $125.3 million. If the acquisition of Youfoodz is successful, it promises to boost HelloFresh’s net revenues in Australia by about $150 million a year and increase customer numbers by at least 145,000. HelloFresh Australia CEO Tom Rutledge: “The intention is to maintain Youfoodz as a stand alone company …”   “We have an ambition to become one of the largest direct-to-consumer food businesses in the world and ready-to-heat is an obvious extension for us as an adjacent category, leveraging a lot of capabilities,” said HelloFresh chief executive Tom Rutledge. “The intention is to maintain Youfoodz as a stand alone company but we’d have a broader offer and a broader addressable market and … have a bigger…

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VISA TO APPROVE FIRST AUSTRALIAN CARD FOR SPENDING BITCOIN

14/07/21; Australian Financial Review A start-up created by two mates from the University of Technology, Sydney has convinced global card giant Visa to approve the issuance of a physical debit card that will allow users of the CryptoSpend app to spend their bitcoin trading profits in shops and bars by tapping on existing payment terminals. It will be the first time cryptocurrencies can be spent using a payments card issued in Australia that runs on the network of one of the international card schemes, and highlights global moves by Visa and Mastercard to make it easier to spend bitcoin and other digital currencies to pay for everyday items. CryptoSpend co-founders Andrew Grech, left, and Richard Voice say more people will look to spend their crypto winnings in shops using plastic cards.  The growing ease of “off-ramping” crypto holdings via physical transactions using existing payments infrastructure runs counter to the core…

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APPLE PLANS BUY NOW, PAY LATER SERVICE TO RIVAL AFTERPAY

14/07/21; Australian Financial Review The buy now, pay later system could convince more users to use their iPhone to pay for items.    Apple is working on a new service that will let consumers pay for any Apple Pay purchase in instalments over time, rivalling the “buy now, pay later” offerings popularised by services from Affirm Holdings and PayPal. The upcoming service, known internally as Apple Pay Later, will use Goldman Sachs as the lender for the loans needed for the instalment offerings, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Goldman Sachs has been Apple’s partner for the Apple Card credit card since 2019, but the new offering is not tied to the Apple Card and does not require the use of one. The buy now, pay later system could help drive Apple Pay adoption and convince more users to use their iPhone instead of standard credit cards to pay for items. Apple receives a…

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